94. THE LAND OF THE LION 
of my men by the way had been mauled before, and changed 
my .350 for my .450, a good gun, but one I never learned 
to shoot as well with as the former. We kept on after the 
lions in front, for most of the pack seemed there, and I 
had to slow up again and again to wipe off my glasses, as 
the sweat blinded me. All the time the lions seemed to 
know that I could not hunt them in their own chosen cover, 
and they took matters leisurely, sometimes passing rapidly 
ahead of me, and then allowing me to come up till I could 
guess their proximity by the low growling that would rise 
from two sides at once, and that seemed almost under my 
feet, but yet could not be exactly placed. It was jumpy 
work enough, and the tangled, unburned grass, made the 
rapid walking very hard. It was easy to keep their trail, 
for the low, heavy bodies left unmistakable tracks in the 
still wet grass, and we pushed on without pause or check. 
At last a head was raised clean above the grass some eighty 
yards away, and I steadied myself to fire. As I was on the 
point of pressing the trigger Dooda pulled my arm down, 
and pointed to a large lioness that was standing quite close 
at my left, some twenty yards away. She was ina tall bit of 
_grass, and none of us had seen her. As I turned she van- 
ished. The lion in front during the instant’s delay, had sat 
up on his hind legs and gave me a fair shot at his chest, 
which I hit full, though I was shaking a bit from exercise, 
and my glasses were terribly foggy. He jumped high in the 
air, came down on all four feet, and, of course, vanished. 
The shot seemed to scatter the band. The grass tracks 
separated in every direction. We came cautiously to where 
I had hit him, and found a heavy blood trail easy to follow. 
Then I set Brownie to track him, and made Dooda look 
ahead, for my eyes are not much good at any time, and 
my glasses all foggy from perspiration were of little use in 
detecting such a difficult thing to see as a wounded lion 
always is. 
